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Tuesday 8 January 2013

A whole load of nothingness here in the city

I have absolutely nothing interesting to write about. Nothing. Nothing. Oh, maybe something.

The other day, my senior-at-work and I were discussing how crappy our lives were. We're in the field of accountancy, the senior's a professional already while I'm work in progress. All this and all we want to do is travel the world. We read all these travel blogs and think, we can write this. We so can! Why not!? Because this is how mundane life is, this is how it is "supposed to be", because we're tied, because we're answerable to someone, somewhere. I hate it. We hate it. Living in Mumbai makes it all the more difficult. Don't get me wrong, I love the city and I also know for a fact that were I to live elsewhere, I'd grow restless to get back here and I'd be missing the flooded and clogged monsoon, the pull and push of local trains, the buses tilted  to the left (due to the huge crowd in it and hanging outside both doors), the traffic, the pollution, the congestion, the absolute lack of privacy, etcetra. I can go on. The bottom line? I love this city. Being born and brought up here, I wouldn't trade anything for my life in the city (Mumbai or some place similarly paced, say, New York or London or Amsterdam or Boston, only cleaner : P ).

My senior was telling me about her dear ones living in various parts of the world, I must tell you, I was jealous. Her cousin living in Pune wakes up at 8.45am, gets ready and is at work at 9.30am. Her neighbour living in France took the bus, train, bus and a little walk to the office, it took her 8 minutes to get to work from home. I am so MAD!! This friend living in Delhi, it takes her 30 minutes to get to work and back home.

Me?

Wow, this ought to be fun to share. All you non-mumbaikars, take a look(read):

Waiting for the bus, outside my home : 15 minutes
After boarding the bus, to reach the station : 45 minutes (moderate traffic, with heavy traffic, time taken is close to an hour and 15 minutes)
Board a local train, depending on the destination, whatever time, for me, it's half an hour, excluding mega blocks and signal snags.
After getting down from the train, wait for the bus : 15 minutes
Board bus, time to reach the destination : 35 minutes (moderate traffic)

So, one way, for a middle class girl, working at a small office 20 kms away from home is 2 hours and 20 minutes.

At the end of the day, I have an average commute time of 4  hours and 40 minutes in my kitty. Many may think that she might as well put the time to good use, after all, time is money! Oh, you are so wrong! The best pass time during travelling in my opinion is reading (listening to blaring music over headphones is pointless, in my opinion unless you are in the music industry). Now, reading maybe possible only when the bus or train is empty, or partially so. When you have to board a crowded train or bus(which is everyday) wherein you have to stand STICKING to the person next to you, so much so that his/her hot breath is felt on your arms, the stink of his sweat is all over your nostrils and if he's listening to music, God help you, the proximity is such that you can even listen to that.

This is the reality of an ordinary average working class Mumbaikar. We travel 4 hours in order to put in 8 hours of work, we get, say, 7 hours of sleep, say, 3 hours of meal time, and we have 2 hours left in a day (which we ideally use for ranting and raving and complaining about the useless life and system in place). At the end of the day, the week, we are so exhausted that all we dream about are wonderful vacations and just don't have the energy, money or time to take one.

Life sucks!! I could use some advice.

Damn, I thought I had nothing on my mind but, voila! :)

Regards

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